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In the home stretch of the presidential campaign trail, John McCain has been saying that his opponent Barack Obama is so sure that he's bound for the White House that he's already "measuring the drapes." It's a durable political expression, though very often it's said as "measuring for drapes" (which makes a bit more sense), and sometimes it's curtains that get presumptuously measured (for), rather than drapes. What's the difference, anyway?
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Tonight (Thursday, October 23rd), the New York Public Library is hosting an event of particular interest to the Visual Thesaurus community. The always entertaining writer Roy Blount Jr. will be speaking about "Words: Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts," which is the subject of his new book, Alphabet Juice. Tickets for the event are still available, and the NYPL is offering free complimentary admission to all Visual Thesaurus subscribers! Full details below.
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It's time once again for Mailbag Friday! Marc T. of New York, NY writes: "John McCain recently said that he put his campaign on hold to work on the Senate bailout package because 'it's not my style to simply phone it in.' Why do we talk about doing something in a lackluster or perfunctory way as phoning it in? Who originally did the phoning in, anyway?"
The history of American slang is often illuminating, and this is no exception: tracing the origins of this expression tells an intriguing story about the intersection of the technological and the theatrical.
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What will persist in our collective memory from last week's presidential debate, the second of three between John McCain and Barack Obama? The Philadelphia Inquirer suggests that only two remarks will be remembered: McCain referring to Obama as "that one," and Obama's defense against charges of naivete, "that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears." McCain's "that one" has already become an ironic catchphrase, even generating a website selling "That One '08" T-shirts. But what's the deal with "green behind the ears"? Didn't Obama mean "wet behind the ears"?
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